Bittersweet, the chocolate cafe

Notes and reflections on Oakland's food artisanry observed from a front row seat.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Thoughts on finishing Deep Economy

Having just finished reading Bill McKibben's thoughtful book Deep Economy, I was struck by the following passage's relevance to chocolate and cacao (emphasis mine):

"The poor nations of the world need to develop. But if they develop according to our model, the planet will break under the strain. We in the rich nations need to change, not just for environmental reasons but because our way has stopped producing as much human happiness as it should. That middle ground is hard to define, and we will take generations to reach it, because we start so far apart. But it is more local than the world we know now, and less individualistic. It measures not More but Better."

Barring dramatic changes in climate, locavores in the Northern hemisphere will never find cacao at their neighborhood farmer's market. And that makes it even more important that all of us who really love this food become more mindful consumers, supporting those parts of the chocolate and cacao economy that we find to be most viable and productive, not in the harsh glow of globalized economics, but instead in the warmer lights of human happiness and quality of experience.